Katherine Mansfield’s Presentation of Happiness

Bliss and The pocket-sized Governess are two short stories written by Katherine Mansfield at the time of World War 1 (1914-18). They were taken from the volume Bliss And early(a) Stories and both depict young woman, one one and one married, who are victims of deception. Both characters in these two stories believe themselves to be safe. In Bliss Bertha accounts her gladness to the fact that she doesnt have to worry astir(predicate) money she believes that worldness financially stable is ecstasy. She has modern, thrilling fri differences but she treats them as temporal possessions. In this air Katherine Mansfield presents happiness as superficial.Bertha believes that having a cosy family bread and butter, and being respected in social circles promotes a star of security. She has the protection of a good maintain, and a satisfactory house and garden. However, this is all self-deception, as it does not stupefy her safe. On the contrary, her happiness blinds her, and makes her uninitiated. She has no inkling of the fact that her husband is having an affair. In The Little Governess she feels safe with the nonagenarian man, and with this security she feels frightfully happy. just her perception of happiness is different to what the ref sees.A flush vanquish the old mans cheeks the old mans perception of her is very different to hers of him. Her happiness makes her vulnerable, and all in all innocent of the old mans knowledgeable agenda. This state of happiness that Bertha and The Little Governess racket is so far real, even if it turns out to have blinded them both from reality. Katherine Mansfield suggests in both stories that innocence is bliss. Because they are ignorant of the truth does not make it necessarily unreal bliss. The fact that Bertha and the Little Governess discover that they have been dreadfully misled does not cancel out the happiness that they felt earlier.Bertha feels familiar excitement, which is bear on by Miss Fultons touch of that cool down arm. Sexual looks are uncorked and she describes it as a fire of bliss. This bliss that Bertha feels is strong, as she is innocent of what lies ahead of her. and then the deception does not take away the experience of the happiness, but bankrupt her innocence. But deception can ruin future happiness as with The Little Governess she can neer again feel happiness towards an old person, therefore with the benefit of experience she realizes her past happiness was false.So happiness for her does outlast, but it is transient, it cannot last-place forever. At the time in which Bliss and Other Stories was published, there was no substantial schooling available to women, and they often engage sheltered lives. This meant that women were dangerously ignorant of the ways of the world. In the Little Governess, the madam at the Governess Bureau under stays this and advises her to be a woman of the world, and that its better to suspect people. This shows that youn g women were not educated about the ways in which a woman should act, and were thoroughly naive about peoples thoughts and deeper intentions.In Bliss Bertha does not know what to do when she discovers that her husband is having an affair. Oh what is going to happen now? she cries at the end of this powerful story. She feels paralysed. Although she describes her husbands smile as a hideous grin, which implies nearlything ugly and unchaste, she does feels rail at towards Harry for his infidelity. However she cannot express any feelings of anger, but only work out confusion and shock. She is ignorant of what to do in this situation, and she is fearful of ca development a scandal. Bertha is not the one in control.Whilst she is perplexed and vulnerable, her husband is extravagantly cool and collected. Though in Bliss Bertha describes some things in her life as material or superficial happiness, (perfect house, friends husband etc. ) she alike feels a deep seated, unexplained heart rate of happiness at the core of her being. However, there are also confining views in society that cause her to feel anger that she cannot express fully. She cannot stand still and laugh at nothing- at nothing simply for fear of being thought drunk and dis vagabondly which dents her happiness slightly.She says how idiotic civilization is and feels that it is like a straight jacket constricting her and preventing her from experiencing her happiness more fully. Bertha cannot really allow go, and tries to conceal her bliss by resorting to a more conventional prose when talk to a servant. Later she throws off her coat revelling in her euphoria. Berthas happiness seems to be alone uncontrollable, she describes it like a fire and has fear for fanning it higher which implies that it could lead to some kind of chaos.Bertha looks in the mirror and sees herself with big dark eyes, which implies her sexual excitement, as her pupils expand. Katherine Mansfield promotes this sense of oppr essed sexual feelings by describing fruit with smooth skin and stained pink which gives a sense of erotic colours and enriched senses. Later she thinks she is getting hysterical which hints at Freudian ideas of sexual oppression, which were popular at the time. Bertha has not recently enjoyed sex with her husband, and has probably never had pre-marital sex, which is another way in which Katherine Mansfield explores happiness, with sex as bliss.Bertha also obtains brutal pleasure from hugging her child. She describes physical happiness in her exquisite toes and her hump as she bent forward. Which illustrates Berthas want of sensual pleasure. It is telling that when Bertha is hugging a simply mundane object like a cushion passionately, passionately it seems to explode the sexual and sensual happiness that she is feeling and fans the fire in her bosom. It is ironic that the first time Bertha Young desires her husband she cannot have him because of his affair with drop cloth Fulton .This powerful force, which whispers blind and smiling in her ear, makes her more vulnerable as she desires him. She wonders if this feeling of bliss had been leading up to desiring her husband for the first time. Here Katherine Mansfield attributes some of the bliss Bertha is feeling to sex. Another story by Katherine Mansfield called Pictures depicts a unmarried woman struggling to find a job to support her, and using happiness as a kind of professional tool for tutelage reality at bay. Miss Ada Moss is constantly fantasising in order to keep hopelessness and desperation from taking over.Even though her life is falling apart she still answers people in her cheerful way in order not to draw attention to herself and to keep up ap pear treeances. Her sterling(prenominal) fear perhaps, is to be found out to be desperate, and the only way to prevent this is to pretend to everyone and to herself that nothing is wrong. Katherine Mansfield uses different styles of writing in her storie s in order to convey a sense of happiness to the reader. She vividly describes prevalent things extra ordinarily like the recurring image of the pear maneuver so that they become metaphors.She also uses a simile to describe the pear trees flowering beauty like the flame of a candle. She goes on to imply that the pear tree is becoming Bertha, by dropping in silver flowers from her bull and hands which makes this happiness seem like blissful treasure dropping heavily from Bertha. The last line of Bliss again returns to this image of the pear tree, and describes it as just as lovely as ever which seems a revelation, that with Pearl Fulton, Harry and Berthas lives being entangle and confused, the tree still remains.Berthas life is shattered but the tree is still there, the same as ever. Katherine Mansfield also uses slightly unexpected verbs like the prime licked the old mans cheek (from The Little Governess), in order to let the reader have a small insight into what the characters true agendas really are. She also uses the Pathetic Fallacy to reflect the characters inner happiness, as in The Little Governess the pink clouds in the sky. Overall Katherine Mansfield represents happiness in a procedure of different ways.Through material happiness in Bliss, to innocent and naive happiness in the Little Governess. Through fantasising happiness in Pictures to sexual or sensual oppression, and sex as happiness in Bliss. Katherine Mansfield portrays happiness as not false, but as transient. In all triple of her stories the characters happiness is slowly or suddenly crushed by out-of-door interference. Bertha and the Little Governess believe that their happiness will last forever. They are both naive, sadly mistaken, and have to learn that perfect happiness does not exist and cannot last forever.